Fallout Creator Black Isle Studios Is Back

Newly-reformed studio asks for your help (and money) to make a brand-new post-apocalyptic RPG.

By IGN Staff

Well, this in unexpected. Famed RPG developer Black Isle Studios, which created Fallout, Planescape: Torment and the Icewind Dale series between 1996 and its closure in 2003, is back with a pitch for a brand new post-apocalyptic RPG.

Entitled PV13 (at the moment), the new game will be about a player leading a community in a devastated world by gathering resources, rebuilding and keeping their people alive. Black Isle is asking for donations to make a proof-of-concept demo. Donate $20 and you'll be a "contributing member" and apparently have real influence over the creation of the game. Here's their pitch; the serious bit begins about 2 minutes 30 in.

There's a lot of complicated background to this. Black Isle was originally part of Interplay, the studio that was involved in years of court cases with Bethesda over the Fallout property after Bethesda bought the rights (you'll notice that every mention of the word 'Fallout' is bleeped out in the video), eventually losing the rights to create a Fallout MMO. Black Isle's resurrection was announced by Interplay in August this year, but it's been mysterious until now.

Why should you care? If you ever played any of Black Isle's game in the late 90s, you'll know that they still stand up as some of the best examples of their genre ever made; if you haven't played Planescape or the first two Fallouts, you can buy them today and appreciate their magnificence. And this doesn't seem to be a resurrection in name only - several of the original staff are involved, and appear in the video.